Duke's First Demo

Photos by Ty Holland

Yesterday, we performed at Wren Arena on behalf of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame celebration. Although we have been practicing for the cavalry riding demonstration for weeks, we encountered some last minute changes that disrupted out plan a little. For one, our commander was called away for other duties so we had to substitute him with the Executive Officer. Another change was that my primary horse, Apache, came down with a virus and I had to ride Duke instead. Duke has practiced the demo a few times but was not quite ready for prime time.

The demo begins with our howitzer team firing a round through the arena gate and us galloping through the smoke into the arena. However, since we swapped out the commander, we also swapped out horses. The horse ridden by the XO was not practiced in riding through the smoke. He got part way through the gate and then performed a 180 degree turn and started to gallop out. The horses behind collided with him and we had an ugly horse wreck at the gate. Fortunately, no horses or men were hurt and we managed to get back on track within seconds and proceeded on into the arena.

The first part of the demo involves "threading the needle" where the files separate and gallop through each other. Duke is fairly good at this part and did fine except that he was bothered by the people in the stands and shook his head and acted a little crazy as we galloped along the rail. This portion is followed by the mounted drill portion which Duke is also good at. However, when we got to the saber bashing portion, he began to fall apart. He became uncontrollable and wandered out of his position as we lined up for the saber attack. We completed the saber attack and recovered but then things got worse.

The next portion called for us to line up and fire a carbine volley. Duke has never experienced one before and when I cut loose with the carbine, he went nuts. We managed to get back into formation but I was already started to get fatigued by the effort to control him. The next portion of the demo was the pistol charge.

I decided that is was best not to fire the pistol during the charge as Duke was already about to come out of his skin. We lined up and performed the charge but I kept both hands on the reins and did not even draw my pistol. We rejoined after the charge and then formed up for the saber charge. I felt I had sufficient control of him at that point to draw my saber but he was spinning in a circle when the charge command was initiated and we were well out of position for the charge. However, we completed it okay and reformed for the final salute.

Duke was sopping wet at the end of it and I was so fatigued I could barely dismount. It wasn't our prettiest demo but no one was hurt in the process. Duke did okay considering he was in no way ready for a full demo. Hopefully, I haven't set his training back to far in the process.